Studio Crux

AI transformation services

Studio Crux helps organizations modernize by understanding customers, creating or improving digital products, and optimizing workflows through agentic automation.

Get senior, hands-on expertise in an outcome-based model without the overhead of a large consultancy.

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Strategy + Execution

The hardest part of digital change is rarely choosing a tool. It's understanding the real problem, seeing the experience from the customer's or employee's perspective, deciding what's worth changing, and making a plan people can actually execute.

Studio Crux brings research, experience strategy, product thinking, AI enablement, and hands-on design and development together. Engagements are led directly by Audubon Dougherty, with specialist collaborators brought in when the work calls for them.

Service pillars

01  ~  Research & Insight

Understand market opportunities as well as human behaviors, opinions, and needs, and translating those into product strategies or service blueprints.

Qualitative and quantitative research, stakeholder discovery, usability testing, competitive intelligence, and synthesis that turn evidence into product, service, and business decisions.

  • Customer & user interviews
  • Survey design
  • Usability & concept testing
  • Whitespace identification
  • Journey creation
  • Research reports & custom AI agents
  • Needs-based segments

02  ~  Customer & Digital Experience Strategy

Make customer journeys, digital services, and interactions simpler and more useful.

Assess experiences across channels and touchpoints, find friction and unmet needs, and define a practical direction for the end-to-end experience.

  • CX assessments
  • Innovation and HCD workshops
  • Strategic recommendations
  • Journey mapping
  • Service design
  • IA & navigation
  • Experience principles
  • Future-state roadmaps

03  ~  Product Strategy & Development

Turn an idea or underperforming product into a clear roadmap, and when it fits, a working digital experience.

Connect product discovery and strategy with hands-on design and build, from problem framing and MVP definition through UX/UI, prototyping, and custom web or mobile development.

Custom application development is a real service for projects that fit a hands-on, senior-led delivery model. For enterprise-scale integration, infrastructure, or data engineering, Studio Crux leads strategy and design and coordinates with specialist partners.

  • Product discovery
  • Design sprint
  • MVP definition
  • Interactive prototypes
  • Custom web & mobile apps
  • Roadmaps & backlogs

04  ~  AI Strategy & Enablement

Move from AI curiosity to useful, responsible adoption in real work.

Identify where AI can create value, weigh the people and workflow implications, prioritize opportunities, and prepare teams to adopt AI well, grounded in business and human needs rather than hype.

  • Opportunity discovery
  • Readiness assessment
  • AI roadmaps
  • Operating-model design
  • Responsible AI
  • Coaching & workshops

05  ~  Workflow Transformation

Improve the way work gets done across people, processes, systems, and tools.

Map how work actually happens, find friction and chances to simplify or automate, and help teams design a better future state. AI and automation may be part of the answer, not the assumed answer.

  • Process discovery
  • Current / future-state mapping
  • Automation assessment
  • RACI & governance
  • Implementation roadmap

Identify, ideate, implement.

  1. Step 1

    Identify

    Understand the problem to be solved by researching the market, the customers or employees, the products or workflows. Define the real problem, the opportunities, and the outcomes that matter.

  2. Step 2

    Ideate

    Shape the experience, product strategy, operating model, or AI-enabled workflow.

  3. Step 3

    Implement

    Develop a right-sized solution, prototype, or launched product, or prepare teams and partners to deliver. Optionally, create a plan to measure, learn, and refine.

A flexible model, not a mandatory three-phase methodology. An engagement might start with research, a focused app build, an AI workshop, a product strategy sprint, or a CX assessment.

Engage for an assessment, a sprint, a build, or ongoing support.

  • Focused advisory

    A defined question or decision: an AI opportunity review, a product direction, a CX challenge, a leadership working session.

  • Discovery or strategy sprint

    A time-boxed effort to understand a problem, align stakeholders, prioritize opportunities, and build a practical plan.

  • Design & development project

    A scoped product or application engagement spanning discovery, UX/UI, prototyping, and hands-on web or mobile development.

  • Fractional or ongoing support

    A senior independent partner embedded part-time to advise, facilitate, and help move from strategy to execution.

  • Team workshop or enablement

    A practical working session, training, or coaching to build capability inside the team.

Scope and timing are shaped after an initial conversation.

Start here

Start with an assessment

Most engagements begin with a fixed-fee assessment: a short, focused effort to understand the real problem and leave you with a prioritized, actionable plan. It’s a low-risk way to get clarity before committing to a larger build or transformation.

Flat fee, shaped to your situation and scoped on a short intro call.

Start with an assessment

What it can include

  • A working session or workshop
  • Stakeholder & user interviews
  • A site or workflow analysis
  • An AI-opportunity review

What you leave with

  • A findings readout
  • Prioritized recommendations
  • A clear, right-sized next step

A sample of the work behind the practice.

Experience from prior consulting work; client names and details are included only where approved.

Healthcare / life sciences

Enterprise AI operating model

Capability assessment and recommendations to stand up an AI Center of Excellence: 25+ stakeholder interviews, governance, use-case intake, Responsible AI, and a phased roadmap.

Enterprise software

Customer experience transformation

Customer and stakeholder research, journey mapping, CX principles, a measurement scorecard, and a phased roadmap with a first-100-day plan.

Medical technology

AI adoption & workforce enablement

Microsoft Copilot adoption: workflow observation, task evaluation, coaching content, and workforce-transformation planning.

Home-improvement retail

AI enablement & workflow automation

AI enablement training and coaching for teams, plus workflow automation planning, for a national home-improvement retailer.

Clinical research

Digital product discovery

Mobile MVP design sprint: participant journey, user stories, an interactive prototype, usability findings, and prioritized build recommendations.

Enterprise operations

Unified platform & workflow redesign

Consolidated fragmented applications: workflow mapping, future-state concepts, task flows, and an interactive prototype.

Research / advisory services

Customer portal modernization

Portal assessment, information architecture, publishing workflows, search, and platform recommendations.

Senior thinking. Direct collaboration. The right team for the work.

Studio Crux is led by Audubon Dougherty, an independent strategist, researcher, and product builder with 12 years of consulting experience at Slalom. You work directly with Audubon throughout the engagement. When a project calls for additional technical or specialist expertise, she can refer out to trusted collaborators, without the overhead of a large agency.

Portrait photography

Beyond consulting, Audubon is also a professional photographer, available for portrait sessions in and around New York City and New Jersey.

See photography

Have a customer experience, product, or workflow challenge?

Let’s talk through what’s happening, what you want to make better, and what a useful next step could look like.

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